The infantry units hovering near the rear camps broke ranks immediately. Men threw down their shields and heavy pikes, sprinting frantically for the safety of Qohor's towering stone gates. But for the thousands of men trapped deep in the blood and mud of the Roman pocket, there was no escape.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon, the red sea of Imperial shields surged forward, submerging the last of the trapped vanguard entirely.
The rout was a stampede of screaming meat. Sellswords and city militia alike threw down their pikes and shields, trampling their own wounded into the bloody mud in a blind, mindless scramble for the safety of Qohor's looming gates.
Ana rode hard against the tide. She drove her warhorse directly into the surging mass of fleeing men, using the beast's armoured bulk to violently part the wave. Blood and clumps of earth flew from the hooves as she scanned the chaos, searching for the white banner of the Falling Stars amidst the butchery.
She found Marc holding a crumbling pocket of order near the rear of the slaughter. The giant vice-commander had organized a half-circle of grizzled veterans, their dented shields locked, spears jutting outward to deter the roving Roman cavalry that was running down the stragglers.
Ana hauled back on her reins, her mount rearing. "Pull them back!" she roared over the din of screaming men and dying horses. "Form a rearguard! We garrison within the city!"
Marc brought his massive broadsword up, deflecting a wild spear thrust from a passing Roman outrider before driving a dagger into the horseman's thigh. He ripped the blade free and spat a glob of red onto the trampled earth, his chest heaving. "Into the city? Through this panicked herd? They'll trample us into the muck before the red bastards even reach our lines!"
"It must be done!" Ana yelled, swinging down from her saddle. She slapped her horse's flank, sending the beast bolting toward the distant gates, and stepped directly into the mud beside the giant. "Lock the line! We bleed them for every yard we give!"
The veterans of the Falling Stars closed ranks around them. They were the hardened core of the company, men who had survived a dozen Essosi meat grinders. They didn't break. They braced their boots in the muck, raised their splintering shields, and waited.
The Roman cavalry hit them a moment later.
Ana stepped forward to meet the charge. In her grip rested the prize she had bled the Eranis family to secure: a massive Valyrian steel claymore. The blade was nearly as long as a man's leg, forged of dark, rippling steel that drank the fading daylight. For a normal man, it was a cumbersome, two-handed executioner's tool. In Ana's hands, driven by her unnatural, monstrous strength, it was an instrument of carnage.
An Imperial rider lunged, driving his lance directly at her chest. Ana didn't bother to parry. She swung the great sword in a brutal, two-handed horizontal arc. The Valyrian steel hissed, shearing completely through the thick ironwood shaft of the lance, slicing cleanly through the rider's chainmail, and biting deep into his ribs. Blood sprayed hot and thick across her silver breastplate as the man tumbled violently from his saddle.
She did not stop. The Roman infantry, fresh from the slaughter of the Qohorik center, came rushing forward like a pack of starved hounds running down wounded deer. They slammed into the Falling Stars' rearguard.
Ana became a threshing machine of dark steel. A legionary raised his heavy, curved red shield to block her overhead strike. The Valyrian claymore cleaved straight through the thick iron rim and the layered linden wood, splitting the Roman's iron helm and skull down to the bridge of his nose. She wrenched the blade free with a sickening crunch of bone, stepping backward in perfect sync with Marc's piercing whistles.
Step. Strike. Retreat. The rearguard moved like a single, spiked beast, backing slowly toward the towering walls of Qohor. They left a trail of butchered Romans in their wake.
The legionaries pressing the attack suddenly faltered. The chaotic bloodlust drained from their soot-stained faces, replaced by cold, hard calculation. These were not the green boys of the Free Cities. Seeing that the Falling Stars were not going to break and offer their backs to the slaughter, the disorganized pack of pursuing Romans abruptly stopped hunting.
Barking guttural commands the centurions forcefully dressed their lines. The legionaries snapped their heavy red shields together, interlocking them edge-to-edge with mechanical precision. Their short swords withdrew, replaced by a bristling wall of iron-tipped pikes. They were preparing to crush Ana's pocket with the sheer, methodical weight of the Imperial machine.
Ana adjusted her grip on the slick leather hilt of her claymore, her chest heaving, her boots sinking deep into the bloody mire. Marc raised his broadsword beside her, his breathing harsh and ragged. They braced for the inevitable meat grinder.
Then, a long, mournful blast from a brass horn rolled across the blood-soaked plains. It came from the Imperial rear.
The Roman wall stopped dead.
Not a single legionary took another step forward. Spears that were mere inches from the sellswords' chests were smoothly drawn back. The Imperial army, standing amidst tens of thousands of slaughtered Qohorik and mercenary troops, simply lowered their weapons.
They watched with cold, disciplined eyes as Ana and her surviving veterans backed away, dragging their wounded through the sucking mud, until the heavy iron portcullis of Qohor finally swallowed them whole.